Otti Berger (Otilija Ester Berger) was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. She was a student and later teacher at the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

, where she was a

textile artist Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...

and weaver. She was murdered in 1944 at

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

Early life

Otti Berger was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. At the time of Berger’s birth, Zmajevac was part of the Baranya region of Austro-Hungary and was known as Vörösmart. Berger’s Jewish family was granted unrestricted residence and freedom in religion under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph 1. Because of Vörösmart’s national transition from Austro-Hungarian to Yugoslavian in 1918, and later Croatian, Berger’s nationality was and still is often mistaken. Though a native Hungarian speaker, Berger was also fluent in German. Due to a previous illness, Berger suffered from partial hearing loss, which was said to have heightened or enhanced her sense of touch.

Education

Berger was born in Zmajevac in

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(present-day

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...

). She completed education at the Collegiate School for Girls in Vienna before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, now the

Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb The Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb ( hr, Akademija likovnih umjetnosti u Zagrebu or ALU) is a Croatian art school based in Zagreb. It is one of the three art academies affiliated with the University of Zagreb, along with the Academy of Dramatic Art ...

. She continued her studies in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

until 1926 before attending

Dessau Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßl ...

, Germany. There, Berger studied under

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

, and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

, among others. Berger has been described as "one of the most talented students at the weaving workshop in Dessau." Book MET DP10028

A core member of the experimental approach to textiles at the Bauhaus,T’ai Smith. Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Project MUSE. Web. June 13, 2015. https://muse.jhu.edu. Berger experimented with methodology and materials during the course of her studies at the Bauhaus to eventually include plastic textiles intended for mass production.Weibel, Peter.
Beyond Art: A Third Culture. A Comparative Study in Cultures, Art and Science in 20th Century Austria and Hungary
'. Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 2005. Along with Anni Albers and

Gunta Stölzl Gunta Stölzl (5 March 1897 – 22 April 1983) was a German textile artist who played a fundamental role in the development of the Bauhaus school's weaving workshop, where she created enormous change as it transitioned from individual pictori ...

, Berger pushed back against the understanding of textiles as a feminine craft and utilized rhetoric used in photography and painting to describe her work. During her time in

, she also wrote a treatise on fabrics and the methodology of textile production, which stayed with

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...

and was never published. In 1929, Berger attended classes at Praktiska Vävnadsskolan in Stockholm where she wrote a nine-page thesis about Swedish Weaving techniques called 'Schwedische Bindungslehre', which later influenced her published weaving instructing booklet, '' Bindungslehre.'' In 1931, Berger became the new head of weaving at the Bauhaus under the advisement of Stolzl, who had resigned from the position. She began to create her own curriculum, and acted as a mentor to younger Bauhaus students who carried on Bauhaus methods, including Paris-based weaver Zsuzsa Markos-Ney and , who became a hand weaver in South Africa. It was a short-lived position, however, as she was replaced in 1932 by Lilly Reich, the partner of new Bauhuas directer

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloy ...

Career

When the Bauhaus closed under German force in 1932, Berger opened her own textile design studio, "otti berger atelier für textilien," which she ran from her apartment in Berlin using looms she purchased from the school's weaving workshop. There, her goal was to produce textiles for use in industry. She secured contracts with several design firms, including Wohnbedarf AG, a Swedish design company, and worked with manufacturers C.F. Baumgärtel & Sohn, Schriever and Websky, as well as Hartmann and Wiesen. Berger was interested in authoring her own work and making a name for herself as a designer of woven textiles, which is uncommon in the industrial textile production field. She went so far as to begin signing her woven works with her initials in lowercase, “o.b.” In 1932, while working on designs for Wohnbedarf AG, Berger pushed for recognition, in fear that her work would be subjected to anonymity within the large design company. She asked that her prototypes be attached to the name “Otti Berger-Stoffe”, a request which was granted by Wohnbedarf. In her continued efforts for recognition, Berger sought patents for some of her fabrics. In fact, she was the only weaver from the Bauhaus to apply for patents for her designs. Though she sought to patent three of her inventions, she received patents for only two - one in Germany in 1934 and the other in London in 1937.

Last Years

Not allowed to work in Germany under Nazi rule because of her Jewish roots, Berger closed her company down in 1936. She fled to London in 1937, where she was able to support herself with sporadic design contracts, including work with Helios Ltd and Marianne Straub. However, her hearing impairment and language barrier made life in England difficult. In a letter to a friend, Berger penned, "The English are very reserved. I believe it will take ten years before one has a circle of friends. I am always alone and find it difficult because I do not know English and cannot hear." Over the course of several years, Berger's attempts to emigrate to United States to work with her fiancé

Ludwig Hilberseimer Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer (September 14, 1885 – May 6, 1967) was a German architect and urban planner best known for his ties to the Bauhaus and to Mies van der Rohe, as well as for his work in urban planning at Armour Institute of Technology ( ...

and other Bauhaus professors failed.Fischer, Linn. "Otti (Otilija Ester) Berger. 1898 – 1944." ''Aviva: Online Magazin fuer Frauen''. Berlin: 2015. László Moholy-Nagy had offered her a place as head of weaving at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, which she would never reach. She wrote to Naum Gabo, Walter Gropius, and other friends trying to gain a teaching visa in 1937 but never acquired one. Due to the political state in England as war approached, Berger's distaste for England grew. Against the pleas of close friends, Berger returned to her homeland of Zmajevac in 1938 to help her family with her mother's poor health. After several years spent with family, in April 1944 Berger was deported alongside her brother, half-brother, and his wife to a detention camp in Mohács. Shortly thereafter in May 1944, they were transferred to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. I ...

in April 1944. Only Berger's brother, Otto, survived. He speculated that Otti had been killed with German gas due to her lack of hearing.

Impact

Otti Berger's work was influential across Europe due to various patents on her designs. She had her works published in magazines such as ''Der Konfektionar,'' the Dutch multi-lingual magazine ''International Textiles,'' the Swedish magazine ''Spektrum,'' and ''Domus'' magazine. Otti Berger partnered with Dutch weaving company De Ploeg where her designs were sold to furniture factories that produced stock for De Bijenkorf and Metz and Co department stores. In 1993, Berger published "Ratta Stoffer pa Ratt Plats" ("Right Fabrics in the Right Places") which influenced many Swedish designers to reconsider their designs for housing textiles so that they "fulfill the demands and needs of hetime." Berger's works have been exhibited at museums internationally such as the

Busch-Reisinger Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, and collected at Harvard Universities' exhibit
The Bauhaus and Harvard
" and the

collection at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Gallery

File:Otti Berger textile 1.jpg, Sample (Upholstry Fabric) by Otti Berger, cellophane and cotton, 43.1 × 37 cm (17 × 14 1/2 in.), 1927-1933 File:Otti Berger textile 2.jpg, Sample (Upholstry Fabric) by Otti Berger, cellophane, 27.3 × 26.1 cm (10 3/4 × 10 1/4 in.), 1927-1933 File:Otti Berger textile 3.jpg, Sample (Upholstry Fabric) by Otti Berger, cellophane, 31.8 × 38 cm (12 1/2 × 15 in.), 1927-1933 File:Otti Berger textile 4.jpg, Sample (Upholstry Fabric) by Otti Berger, cellophane, 26.2 × 33 cm (10 1/4 × 13 1/8 in.), 1927-1933 File:Otti Berger textile 5.jpg, Sample (Upholstry Fabric) by Otti Berger, cellophane, 35.5 × 45.8 cm (14 × 18 in.), 1927-1933

References

External links

Otti Berger entry
at the

Otti Berger entry
at

Online
Artwork by Otti Berger
at the

Biography and works
at Baunet
Photograph "Party at Otti Berger's"
at the

Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997 and is well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overl ...

Otti Berger
research and related links on ''Aviva'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Otti 1898 births 1944 deaths People from Osijek-Baranja County Bauhaus alumni Academic staff of the Bauhaus Textile artists German weavers Croatian people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp Women textile artists Jewish artists Croatian Jews who died in the Holocaust Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Croatian civilians killed in World War II